What is Real Life?

You may spend a whole life as everybody has done: without the slightest notion about the real meaning of being here. Thus, your life ends up in a condition of deep misery. Any and every result you believe you have achieved shows up as something not worth at the end of your life. So much struggle to obtain things, so much work to conquer things… However, you can change this by Awakening, by getting out of this condition of purely mental life, which is complete unconsciousness about yourself.

So, Realization is not a matter of choice but an action of pure Intelligence. Choice is confusion! When there is Clarity, there is no choice! Choice is for mediocre minds. The Intelligent One does not make choices! You cannot choose to be happy or to be miserable. If you have this choice, it is because you are already miserable, you are already unhappy, you do not carry Intelligence. When there is Intelligence, there is no choice between being happy or miserable, between living the Truth or the illusion. Illusion is a false “me” you have embraced for all these years. This has been your lifestyle of dependence, fear, desire and suffering.

If you are Real, because you are Intelligent, you do not make any choice, you do not decide about being Self-Realized or not. Here, the meaning of the word “Realization” implies Freedom, Truth, Love and Consciousness. Thus, you need to learn how to live. You need to learn the meaning of being alive. You are only alive for Happiness, not for that model so common that you see around you, where there is much disorder and confusion. The war is the result of that! All human stupidity is the result of this, of minds that choose, minds that are entirely disturbed.

In relationships, you see all this conflict of choice. Notice that everything you choose is from your confusion. It does not represent Peace in your life, Freedom, Love, nor Consciousness. What is present in your life is illusion! This is what you call “my personal, private life.” “I do not want anybody messing with me, because this is my life.” You are proud of all this, of all “your” achievements, but none of this represents Happiness. You are not in this present moment. You are not living life as it is happening here and now.

In the mind, you experience a projection of existence. It is not the existence as it is. It is not life as it is. It is only a projection, a calculation created by thought, what I am calling as “choice.” Then, you are just a plaything of this unconsciousness. You live in a wonderful house. You have a beautiful family, a good husband or a good wife, also very beautiful children… You put them in College, give them a professional background, and they keep the model. They become respectable people later on for everything they have also achieved, for everything they have accomplished, but all of them are still trapped in unhappiness. All because they, just like you, have never known Real Life. They have never known Freedom. They have never known Happiness. That is because they have never known Themselves. Realization is to know yourself, which does not mean knowing this false “me.”

So, the word “self-knowledge” does not apply here. It is not about knowing yourself. I am using the word “Realization,” at this moment, and not “self-realization.” Realization of your True Nature, of your True Being, of your True Self! It is not this false “me” that only knows this model already prefixed by society, by culture, by the world around you. So, I always come back to this point: life is something that is happening, but you, in the false “me”, do not know this. Everything you are experiencing is within this model of the mind, of this pseudo-reality, which you call to be born, to live and to die, and in the meantime, to conquer, to accomplish, to procreate, to live what you call "love," "affectivity," "accomplishments of desires."

So, the point is to know what is here, at this very moment. What is it that is expressed temporarily here in a body, in a mind, through this organism? If you do not find out this, if you do not know the real meaning of this Realization, you are not really alive. You have never lived! It means just being in a dream… a dream of unconsciousness and misery. So, you need to Awake!

There was an emperor in Japan who was a very, very, very powerful. He became a very famous emperor. He was known throughout the world, but he was unhappy. He had everything, but he didn't know Happiness. He was one of those who chooses, who mistakes his being for appearances, for external achievements, for attainments. Then, he heard about a master who was in his country. This master also became very famous in ancient Japan. He was called Nain.

So, the emperor went to see the master and when he arrived before him, he said, “I would like to ask you a question. I am famous. Everybody knows me. Everybody knows the power and wealth I have. This made me famous throughout the world! I want to know about you. What has made you famous here in Japan? Everybody talks about Nain, the Zen Master. What has made you someone so famous? You do not have the power and wealth that I do, and I am the one who is coming to you to ask you a question, and not the other way around. What has given you such fame?

Nain looked at the emperor and said, “When I go to the forest, I cut firewood and bring it home.” There was a small well and he pointed to the well and said, “When I need water, I go to that well and I draw water from there and put it inside the house.” At that moment, the emperor, looking at him, said, “So what? So what?” And Nain replied to the emperor: “I cut firewood and bring it home. I draw water from the well and put it inside the house.” The emperor said, “Is that all?” And Nain replied: “Yes.”

At that moment, the emperor was very furious! He said, “I am the emperor; have I travelled many days to listen to such an answer? Nain remained in silence. The emperor got even more furious! He turned to Nain and yelled, “I am the emperor! I came here for a spiritual counseling and is that all you have to say to me?” Nain waited a few seconds and replied to the emperor, “This is the spiritual counseling I give to everyone. This is the only thing I have to say. When some people come to me to find Peace, Happiness, Freedom, I say it to them.”

"It took me years to reach that point to just cut wood and bring it home, to go to the well and get water and put it inside the house. It took me many years because when I used to leave the house my mind was full of thoughts. During all the way to the forest, a lot of thoughts were going on inside me, a lot of worries, a lot of desires, a lot of feelings. There were a lot of conflicts here until I got where I would cut firewood. While I was cutting the firewood, thoughts were here anticipating the future, concerned with future achievements, with what had happened in the past... There was a crowd of thoughts here! So, I went back home. While carrying firewood, thoughts, concerns and feelings were still here. So, it took me many years to learn how to cut firewood and bring it home. When I went to the well to get water, the thoughts and feelings were here. In everything I put myself to do, I was not present. The thoughts were present, so were the feelings, the sensations, the perceptions, and I mistook myself for this all the time. I believed I was all of this! I was sleeping!”

“Now everything is clear. There is not dream anymore. There are no thoughts anymore, and then the only thing I have to say to you is that I have learned how to cut firewood, how to draw water from the well. Today, when I cut firewood, I only cut firewood. When I carry firewood, I only carry firewood. When I draw water from the well, I only draw water from the well. When I am bringing home the water from the well, I am only bringing home the water from the well. There is no dream anymore. I am not sleeping anymore! So, this is what I say to everyone, ‘Learn how to cut firewood and how to bring water home.’ ”

Remain in your Being! That is the matter here! This is Life! So either you are in Life or you are attached to the identifications with the mind. If you identify with the mind, with this huge amount of thoughts, feelings, sensations, emotions, perceptions, you live in a world of desires, in a world of fear, in an unreal illusory life. Then, when we talk about Realization, we are talking about the Realization of the Truth about who You are. This is Real Life!

* Presential meeting transcription originally held in Campos do Jordão city -Brazil, on March, 2018. - First published in Portuguese on November 11th, 2019 - For more information about how to participate, please access:http://mestregualberto.com/agenda/agenda-satsang .

Life is a great movie

My message itself is not complicated, but it seems crazy to the mind. I am giving the credit to what you consider "real life,” simple the credit to a mere appearance, an idea, a concept, a belief, a dream. This may sound crazy to you.

I want you to discover true gratitude in experiencing this Reality without all the burden you know in your mind. The state of the mind is very confusing. You need to find out what is Real Life! When I say "to find out," I am saying "to marvel at it," because an intellectual approach to This is impossible.

Everything has been complicated only because you are living the dream of separation, in which you are an individual, apparently making decisions (going to the mall, deciding what to buy, who to marry, where to live, etc.). In this dream of separation, as an individual, you are making choices every day and deciding about the future. You believe, for example, that you chose to enter this room today. So, in this dream, you believe you are choosing your path, making it all happen. In this “your” history, you think of yourself as a separate person from Life.

What I am saying is that there is no True Understanding. As long as this belief that you are creating everything around you is present, there is no way to recognize the Truth about Yourself. This is so because you will be mistaking yourself for an imaginary story, sustained by thought, and thus there will be no Gratitude, no Beauty, no Peace ... What I am saying is that Life is not really what you believe it to be. That's why I started by saying that to the mind what I say is complete madness. You believe you went there, fetched a chair, sat in it, and now you say, "It happened naturally... I put it there." Likewise, you believe you have chosen your children, your husband, your family... Pure illusion! Nevertheless, the mind can never realize it, because it never questions if this is real.

I am saying Life is just a great and extraordinary offering, an offering of Truth! Breathing is happening. Heart is beating. Body is moving. Decisions are being made such as taking the chair and sitting in it, entering this room and listening to this speech. These decisions are made in the same way breathing happens and the heart beats, but you have no control over it. Similarly, thoughts appear at a certain moment and then disappear to make way for new thoughts. One day the heart and the breath will stop and the body will no longer be there in this chair. This is so simply because this event is not under your control.

Life, as a great offering, is sovereign, obeys no rules. I will repeat this to you: one day the blood will stop circulating in the body, the heart will stop beating, because of that no other day will be guaranteed. The sensations in the body, like the sound you hear, the heat, the cold, the thoughts coming and going, all this is the manifestation of the Divine offering. It is pure Grace in this non-separation, in this unique Truth.

This work in Satsang presents you the possibility of liberation or whatever name you want to give it, which is the Understanding of what is obvious: the Direct Understanding of the Natural.

All this struggle, conflict, and trouble lie in this imagination of not accepting what is obvious, simple, clear, and extraordinarily wonderful. I speak of Life in this Clarity, in this Intelligent Understanding.

Notice that the mind will naturally reject it, because that is the end of its history, control, and future; it is the end of the search. So, it is something akin to death. You all in this room are deeply drawn to This, but there is something within you resisting. The mind will always be saying, “No! This cannot be! I want more! I put this chair here! I built it all, I have done it all! I am building my future!”

When I speak of this extraordinary and wonderful Life, I am saying that it is Natural. The problem with the search, whether material or spiritual, is that it is always rejecting the Truth of this wonder, of what is present, because the mind is always constructing an imaginary story about That, which is so simple, true and real.

Your interest is in the stories the mind can create, not in Life as it presents itself here and now. So, there is this constant fear, this incessant investment in idealism, in imagination. Adults seem to be moving more dogmatically in this field than children do. This because children seem to be still learning how to be miserable, while adults already have a lot of practice in being this. The younger the child, the more innocent he/she is, the greater is his/her simplicity. When you look into the eyes of a very young child, you can still see the beauty of the sense of perception of this Wonder, of accepting Life as it is. However, soon they learn all the trick and become as skilled as the elders, as dogmatic as the elders.

Satsang is the encounter with this Simplicity, this Naturalness, with the Wonder of this great Offering, which is Life. So, This is not an acquisition, not the attainment of a goal through some form of spiritual practice, but the end of the illusion of this dream, this imagination, this sense of separation.

There are many spiritual books dealing with how to change your life. They say, “Change your attitude! Change your manners! Change your thoughts! Get organized and do a program of achievements for the next 5 years!” These books teach you how to deal better with the people you relate to, with family, children, the world around you; but in fact there's nothing going on. Imagine you are going to sleep at night and suddenly you have a dream in which all sorts of things happen, and early in the morning you wake up and see that none of that was real - this is the same thing!

It's like watching a movie trying to change the story, the plot unfolding. The fact is that you are just watching a movie while the mind is trying to change the course of what has already been set for it. So, you forget you are just a spectator and come to believe that you are controlling something, but in fact you are just watching.

So, when you become aware of the Truth about Yourself, your past and future disappear, just as the importance of the movie ending disappears. In that Consciousness, any ending is perfect, because everything is just a movie. I like to watch movies ... they are just like what you call "real life." That's it: Life is a great movie, the greatest and most spectacular of all movies!

The movie itself is not the problem, it is just a joke, enjoyment, a way of presenting this Offering, this Gift, a Divine manifestation. When you know that here and now, in this format, is only a manifestation of this Consciousness, nothing else can hurt you! Both terrible and peaceful scenes can no longer affect you! So, all this notion of time and space loses importance.

* Online meeting transcription, originally held on June 21st, 2019 - First published in Portuguese on September 17th, 2019. Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm (Local Time: Brazil BRT), except during Retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access:http://mestregualberto.com

You are alredy that!

Everything we need is already present here. There is nothing we can build or accomplish beyond That, which is already present.

In fact, what you need is to look at What You Are right now, to look at this Present Truth You bring, this Divine Truth You Are.

I want to invite you to look at this. It is very simple, requires no special effort or skill, because it is the Truth that You Are already, right here, right now. So, just relax in your Being. Observe the inner moves without mistaking yourself with them. It's something that simple…

This allows you to realize this Truth You are. You are That! All your work here is to look at What You Are already! Your difficulty is that you think about building something and not realizing it.

You Are That! Do not forget it! Look at it carefully, give yourself wholeheartedly to It. Give everything for That! This is your Real Life, your Real Freedom, your Real Happiness. The only Real Love of your life is the Real Life itself.

* Presential meeting transcription, on March 2012. - First published in Portuguese on September 27, 2019. Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm (Local Time: Brazil BRT), except during Retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access:http://mestregualberto.com/agenda/agenda-satsang

You have to appreciate the Truth above everything else

Understand the very basic and simple principle: once conflicted, "you" are there, but God is not present nor is Truth. This is a basic principle. The first lesson you have in Satsang is: you are not Real, you are fraud. This self-importance separates you as an entity from life, from existence. So, what bothers you, distresses, disturbs, causes conflict, points out this sense of separation, which is the illusion of this "I" in its self-importance - this fraud. This is misery. This is suffering. This is unhappiness.

Liberation is not the liberation of "someone." It is the liberation of the illusion of "someone" present, who is in conflict and gets disturbed, who has friends and enemies. This is basic. This is the first lesson. I would say that it is the last lesson.

When "you" are present, there is no beauty, because there is no Truth. “Ugliness” is slavery. You are “ugly” only when "you" are present. When "you" are not present, there is no “ugliness,” there is no malignity. When "you" are not there, there is no conflict, fear, suffering; there is no ego nor the illusion of the experiencer. There is no experiencer in the experience. It is only Life ... Life without "you," the world without "you"! It is God! Without "you," everything is God. Without "you," everything is Life, Love, Happiness.

Do you now understand why I have been saying that the Nature of the experience is Happiness? The Nature of the experience is the experience itself, and it does not come into conflict with itself. There must be an illusory element included in the experience so that experience gets conflicting, disturbing, unhappy, problematic, hard. It is this elusive element of the experiencer that comes into conflict, due to this thing of making friends and enemies. Friends become enemies, as we can see here, now. A great friend becomes a great enemy; a not so great friend becomes an enemy with no importance.

All our relationships are settled in choices, for it is what fulfills the experience of an experiencer. They are choices you make or choices by love. When it ceases to fulfill the experiencer, who had opted to choose and has decided for these relationships, these same relationships become unfriendly, unwanted. So, it is when we make old friends become enemies, and old lovers become the most detestable ones, and so on until the grave. You walk, walk, walk until the arrival at the grave.

Life happens without ego; and without ego, there is no conflict. So, Life is Happiness and Happiness is the absence of the sense of "someone" in choices, alternatives, decisions, and positions. Only then, without doing anything, you can be Life itself, leading or being led; being led or leading; life leading itself and allowing itself to be led. So, everything is in the right place and mind is no longer needed. Here, mind is the presumption of intelligence capable of conducting, driving, and pointing you a better way, a safer way without misfortune and adversity - which is a lie, an illusion.

The arrival of the Guru in your life should be (I wish it were immediately) the end of any choice, decision and independence to do or not, to resolve or not, to decide or not. However, it is not like this. When the presence of God, who is the Grace, the Guru, arrives, He finds "home" occupied and cannot dwell there. God can barely visit it, quick visits as a guest makes. 

The Guru, who is Consciousness, Truth, is God, the Presence, Reality, Life, should be the Guide, not the guest who makes a quick visit. The Guru should be accepted at "home" as the real host, the true owner of the “house.” So, Life guides Itself, takes over; and when Life assumes this Intelligence, which is so much beyond mind, beyond ideas, choices and beliefs, It can solve everything.

For that, yes, there is nothing to be solved. You need to appreciate the Truth above your own decisions, choices, ideas, beliefs. You need to give this up, not intellectually, verbally, theoretically, conceptually, but indeed and truly here and now. When you give up all this, "home" can be cleaned and emptied of all "trash.” That’s when the "Visitor" can stop being a "visitor" to become the real host, the owner of the house. However, the "house" has to be cleaned, totally cleaned, so the host may not be in a hurry, not in any hurry, as the guest is when he/she arrives other’s home, and may recognize that it is his own "home" and remain there. You have to make room for it, so that this "Visitor" acknowledges himself/herself as the very own host, the owner of the "house."

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me". – these are the words of Jesus in the Bible.

The question for you is this: is there room? This is the question: is there room? Is there room there, if you are full of knowledge, experiences, courage, pride, friends and enemies, full of things? If you are full of values, such as wealth, prestige, power and certainties… Anyway, the "house" is too full ... very full.

* Presential meeting transcription, originally held in a meeting held in João Pessoa city, Brazil, on June 2016. First published in Portuguese on July 16, 2016. Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm (Local Time: Brazil BRT), except during Retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access: http://mestregualberto.com

You need to discover by yourself

Here, what matters is that you make your own discoveries. What I can do is to give you some tips on what, for sure, you will discover within this process of investigation. These tips are, in fact, revelations, and when you discover by yourself, you see the confirmation of this Reality.

An important thing I can tell you in advance, within this work of discovery, is that thought is not the instrument you need. Thought is not the instrument that can help you to live in harmony with life, because, in fact, the thought inside you is completely chaotic, contradictory and imaginative.

So far, you have been relying too much on thought, in such a way that your life is almost entirely based on it. Your confidence in thought is huge, which explains why all these problems are present in your life and, curiously, present on the planet. Then, you end up believing (and this is also just a thought) that you have put the planet in danger. The planet is not in danger. Although all this confusion has been created, it is not the planet that is in danger. You are in danger!

Thought is something dead and cannot touch Reality. It talks about “me,” a spirit, about a soul, about a mind, about a creation, about a God… Thought says many things. It creates problems and then it seeks for a solution for them. The ideas you have about yourself, about others, about the world, the planet and life are just contradictory, imaginative and problematic thoughts. So, this is a discovery you need to make: trusting in thought is illusion.

That is why I keep on telling you thought is not the instrument that will be able to help you. It is the one that has been creating our culture and has been sustaining this old philosophical, spiritual, political structure, and everything else. What I mean is that thought cannot touch Reality, because thought itself moves you away from That. If you want to find out the Truth, you need to be out of thought, beyond it, and thus you will be beyond imagination, contradiction, beliefs, ideas. Then, the touch of the Present Reality takes place, which is free from thought.

We were taught that God has created the Universe. If you admit that God exists, that the Self has created the Universe, then you cannot deny that God is something prior to the Universe, beyond the Universe, something beyond time and space. Every perception you have of yourself and of the world, based on thought, is within time and space, and therefore it is unable to reach That, which is beyond time and space. If God is a Reality prior to all the manifestation, there must be a faculty in you that is able to recognize It, such faculty must necessarily be out of time and space.

There is Something in you beyond time and space, prior to creation, and only This can visualize the Truth of God, the Divine Truth. Only this Consciousness, which is timeless, non-spatial, which is beyond thought, body, mind and the world, can visualize the Divine Truth, can realize the Truth of God.

Therefore, before this Comprehension of the Truth about Your Being, of Self-Realization, talking about Happiness, Truth, Love, God has no reality. They are just words, more ideas, more beliefs, more thoughts. When you try to visualize the absolute Reality, What is timeless, through concepts, beliefs, spiritual practices and all kind of study, you are just in one more illusion. However, when you reach or realize this Consciousness, the Nature of your Being, you have this visualization of That, which is timeless, which is prior to names and forms, prior to all manifestation, to the entire Universe.

In India, they call this Realization of Truth about your Self as the “Realization of God.” It is when all sense of duality, of separation is collapsed and it is clear that You are this Principle, that there is only this Principle – It is the Unique Reality! It is in this Reality that every manifestation arises, the entire Universe arises as well as every notion of time and space, with thoughts and ideas.

However, as long as you are absorbed by the belief of being the main protagonist of your world of history, by this idea of being the main character, this important person around whom all the history happens, nothing that you have just heard here will be possible. This is the old model of the sense of “me” in duality, in separation, with its desires, fears, dilemmas, conflicts, and problemas.

Satsang is the end of all this! This Reality that You are, is beyond this history, this known and unknown, beyond the past, the future and that what you call as present moment. It is something unspeakable, indescribable. This Consciousness is the own Truth in Itself.

What I am saying here to you may seem rather strange because you are conditioned to accept this whole story as real – the story of this character, of this “someone.” However, there is not “someone” without this story. Without it, everything you know about yourself disappears. The one who believes in oneself as being a “person,” believes in oneself as being the body and mind, and he/she does this because ignores completely the most important factor of one’s existence, which is this Consciousness.

The Sage’s experience in this relation with the world, with the body, is completely different. The Sage does not see all of this as an object, but as the own Consciousness, assuming a temporary, momentary form that will soon disappears. Then, while the common man emphasizes the objects, the Sage emphasizes the Consciousness. So the thoughts as well as feelings are not problems, because the emphasis is in Consciousness. Also, the sensations, the senses, the perceptions, the objects, the world, the body are not problems… the emphasis is always in Consciousness.

The Sages know that everything is Consciousness, so there is no problem. There is nothing separate from this Consciousness! There is no room for fear, desire, conflict, frustration. There is no room for all of this, because there is no division, separation, duality, and there is no difference between manifestation and Consciousness.

However, what you have just heard is something that needs to be realized. That is why I said at the beginning that I am giving you a tip about something you need to discover by yourself. Only then, This will be Real, True. Without this Truth, you are just before words, new beliefs, new concepts, which are useless. This will soon become a mundane interpretation of the Truth (and everybody has done like that). This mundane interpretation of the Truth is what people have called spirituality, which is a kind of fragrant, beautiful, praiseworthy and pleasurable form of ignorance to be heard, but that is still ignorance, illusion.

* Online meeting transcription, originally held on on September 4th, 2019 - First published in Portuguese on October 10th, 2019. Online meetings every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 pm (Local Time: Brazil BRT), except during Retreat periods. For more information about Paltalk app and how to participate, please access: http://mestregualberto.com